Method for introducing a number of heterogeneous items of merchandise simultaneously into a bag



y 26, 1979 'IA/s. GREENFIELD 3,513,617

NEOUS ITEMS OF Y INTO A RAG METHOD FOR INTRODUCING A NUMBER OF HETEROGE MERCHANDISE SIMULTANEOUSL 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed May 29, 1967 4 INVENTOR.

ALBERT B. GREENFIELD BY ATTORNEY.

y 1970 A. B. GREENFIELD 3,513,

METHOD FOR INTRODUCING A NUMBER OF HETEROGENEOUS ITEMS OF MERCHANDISE SIMULTANEOUSLY INTO A RAG Filed May 29, 1967 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. ALBERT B. GREENFIELD W i'TORNEY.

FIG.3

United States Patent 3,513,617 METHOD FOR INTRODUCING A NUMBER OF HETEROGENEOUS ITEMS OF MERCHANDISE SIMULTANEOUSLY INTO A BAG Albert B. Greenfield, 1311 Huntingdon Pike, Huntingdon Valley, Pa. 19006 Filed May 29, 1967, Ser. No. 641,883 Int. Cl. B65b 67/04, 35/32, /06

US. Cl. 5326 1 Claim ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE The method consists of compactly stacking heterogeneous items of merchandise on a loader of the type described, in the form of a block having the contour of the interior of the bag, slipping the mouth of the bag over a major portion of the loader, and then tilting the loader to slide the stacked items into the bag without separating or disarranging the items.

THE INVENTION The invention is applicable to the checkout counters of self-service establishments wherein the customer selects heterogeneous items of merchandise and brings them to a check point where, after having been paid for, the items of merchandise are placed in a bag for delivery to the customer.

IN THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic top plan view of a conventional checkout counter to which my invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along line 2-2 on FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a side elevational view looking in the direction of line 3-3 on FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged composite perspective view showing how the merchandise is arranged on the loader and how it is transferred into a bag.

The merchandise receiving and advancing checkout counter illustrated, has been in use in self-service establishments for many years and, as such, it forms no part of this invention. However, to facilitate the understanding of the invention without reference to extraneous sources, it is pointed out that the counter includes a supporting frame in which are journalled shafts 12 which carry front and rear rolls 14 and 16 which support an endless belt 18. One of the rolls is driven by a motor, not shown, which is controlled by a normally open switch, not shown, which is accessible to the operator who, by intermittently closing the switch, intermittently advances the purchased items from the vicinity of rear roll 14 where the customer deposits them, to the vicinity of front roll 16 where the various items are checked out on a cash register, not shown. The longitudinal edges and the junction of the upper run of the belt with the rolls are covered by the horizontal walls 22 of angle members, the vertical walls 24 of which are secured to frame 10.

In conventional practice, the items checked out are transferred onto a fixed counter which is not shown but which would be to the left of, and flush with the belt, as viewed in FIGS. 1 and 3, where the cashier, or an as- 3,5 13,617 Patented May 26, 1970 sistant, puts the various items into an up-ended bag or other container 26 for delivery to the customer. Because the operator must repeatedly lift items, weighing from a few ounces to a few pounds, the entire height of the bag, this method, which is widely, if not universally practiced, is very fatiguing.

Furthermore, packing items of various shapes and sizes into an up-ended paper bag in a manner which will completely fill the bag and which will separate bottles or other breakables from each other to prevent damage, is too slow to suit the owner of the store, cost-wise, and it is too slow to suit an impatiently waiting customer who has already spent a couple of hours in the store and who wants to get out. As a result of these considerations, it has been the practice for the check-out-clerk to deposit the items in the bag in the order in which they were checked, so that a towel roll can be followed by a bottle of vinegar for instance, and that can be followed by a can of sardines, and so on. Such haphazard packing rarely fills a bag up to more than 65 of its capacity. The result is, from three to six partly-filled bags are used per customer instead of say, from one to three. This represents great and costly waste. Further, under present practice, the checked-out items are accessible to the customer who, because of impatience, or because of a desire to help, proceeds to pack his own items. Observation has shown that a customer fills the bags even less than the trained check-out-clerk does and further increases the cost.

To overcome these difiiculties, I have devised a method of packing, wherein the heterogeneous items which are shown in phantom in FIG. 4 are first stacked on an auxiliary receptacle 28, which is hereinafter referred to as a loading device, or loader, and wherein the bag 26 is slipped over the loader whereby, the mere tilting of the loader causes the items of merchandise stacked thereon, gently to slide into the bag without being separated or disarranged. By making the capacity of the loader about equal to the capacity of the bag, a fully stacked loader will fully load a bag with one movement, or stroke. It will be understood that the items of merchandise stacked on the loader must not project above the top edges of the sides of the loader and that the said items must not project, more than a couple of inches, beyond the ends of the loader.

In order further to reduce the expenditure of energy and of the time needed to stack merchandise on the loader, I have devised a fixed counter 30, the merchandise receiving surface of which is below the surface of the belt, whereby the top of the loader is about flush with the belt, as shown in FIG. 3. By this arrangement, the items to be packed need only be lifted slightly off the belt and then lowered onto the loader.

The loader of my invention includes a bottom wall 32 and side walls 34, the front, or leading ends of which are rounded as at 36, to prevent tearing of the bag while it is being drawn over the loader. The right, or rear end of the loader may be left open as shown in FIG. 4, or it may be closed by a rear wall, the upper edge of which will be substantially flush with the upper edges of the side walls. The height and width of the loader are slightly smaller than the corresponding dimensions of the bag so that a stack of articles confined between, and substantially flush with the upper edges of, the side walls, will be easily insertable into the bag as a unit. The length of the loader is preferably slightly larger than the length of the bag so that when the bag is fully loaded, the uppermost items will be about flush with the top of the up-ended bag.

In order to permit the bag to be drawn over the loader, the loader is supported on fixed counter 30 with its bottom wall 32 spaced from the top of the fixed counter. As shown in FIG. 4, the loader is supported by legs or leg means 40, each of which includes a vertical portion 42 which is secured to the sides of the loader as at 44, and generally horizontal portions 46 which extend forwardly of the loader. It will be noted that the leg portions 46 are spaced from the body of the loader to provide a passageway for the bag, and that their front ends are tapered and rounded to prevent damage or injury.

Legs 40 also include upper, grip portions 48 which are spaced from the side walls 34 to provide a passageway for the bag. By this arrangement, the bag can be passed between the lower leg portions 46 and between the upper grip portions 48 and the adjacent parts of the loader. By this arrangement, only the merchandise-bearing loader will be enclosed within the bag. With the bag fully drawn over the loader, the operator grasps handles 48 and tilts the loader, in counter-clockwise direction as viewed in FIG. 4. The initial rotation of the loader causes the loader to pivot on the front ends of legs 40, which, it will be noted, are spaced inwardly from the front edges of the bottom slipping while the merchandise is sliding into the bag due to further tilting of the loader. It will be noted that the originally horizontal bag tilts or rotates with the rotation of the loader until they both reach a substantially vertical position with the bag resting on its bottom, in which position the loader is easily withdrawn by an upward movement without having to lift the heavy bag.

In stacking the merchandise, it is best that the larger and heavier items be placed near the front end of the loader so that such items will be at the bottom of the upended bag which comes to rest on the fixed counter substantially with the arrival of the merchandise. This guards against tearing of the bag which can result if a heavy item is dropped onto the unsupported bottom of the bag. This orderly stacking is rendered possible by the wholly open top of the loader which enables the operator to select and arrange the items with the heavier ones at the front end of the loader, and wit-h the breakable items such as bottles, sandwiched between cushioning objects, such as a roll of paper.

A loader made of wood or of metal may splinter, or may be permanently dented, or may develop a sharp snag. Also, to be strong enough to carry the weight, must be made relatively thick and heavy. A thick wall reduces the capacity of the loader.

To overcome these objections, I form the loader of fiber glass, of nylon, Teflon" or some other strong, resilient, and light synthetic material.

It will be seen from the foregoing that by my invention the time needed to bag merchandise is greatly reduced by stacking the goods as they are being checked and by transferring a bag-filling stack with one motion; that adequate filling of the bags greatly reduces the consumption of bags; and that by placing the loader at a level below the level of the bag and by transferring the stacked merchandise by merely tilting the loader, the consumption of energy is greatly reduced.

It will also be noted that my method is rendered possible by using a loader which is wholly detached from the counter, and which is carried by spaced legs to form the loader, whereby the loader is tiltable from the horizontal to a vertical position, and so as to be easily withdrawable from the bag.

In practice, more than one loader can be used, so that, as one is filled, it is pushed to the far left portion of the lower counter, where an assistant empties it into a bag;

4 and pushes it back to the position of FIG. 3 where it is accessible to an operator standing behind the cash register and the adjacent end of the belt.

What I claim is: 1. A method of introducing a number of items of various shapes and sizes into a bag of a predetermined size, shape and volumetric capacity, adjacent a multi-level counter top, in a manner to utilize substantially of said capacity, said method comprising:

the step of fixedly securing one end of an open top and open ended item-receiving receptacle to one end of an elongated supporting leg means which extends parallel to and longitudinally of, and in spaced relation to, the bottom of said receptacle to provide room for the insertion therebetween of a side wall of the bag, to produce a freely movable loader which is wholly detached from the lowermost level of the countertop and is tiltable in the direction of its axis,

the step of stopping the free end of the leg means short of the adjacent end of the receptacle,

the step of placing said loader on the lowermost level of the countertop,

the step of conveying the items toward the loader along a path located in a plane above the plane of the lowermost level of the countertop, the distance between said planes being of the order of the height of said receptacle,

the step of assembling a number of said items in said receptacle to form a pile having a substantially smooth exterior and having a shape corresponding to the shape of the interior of the bag and having a cross-section slightly smaller than the cross-section of the bag,

the step of drawing the bag over a major portion of said receptacle and of the pile of items carried therey,

the step of pivoting said loader and said bag about the free edges of said leg means, near the bottom of said bag, to cause the free end of said receptacle to clinch the bag against the lowermost level of the countertop to prevent the bag from sliding 01f during the movement of the items thereinto,

the step of simultaneously sliding said pile of items into said bag while simultaneously up-ending said bag,

and the step of upwardly withdrawing said receptacle out of said bag.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,176,160 3/1916 Miller 53-26 2,403,149 7/1946 Williams 53-35 X 2,555,585 6/1951 Fairbank 53-26 X 2,744,669 5/1956 Ashe 53-37 2,966,770 1/1961 Lewis 53-3 X 3,161,003 12/1964 Grintz 53-35 X 3,270,485 9/1966 Knepper 53-35 X 3,255,570 6/1966 Weimer 53-390 2,939,259 6/1960 Heckler 53-391 X FOREIGN PATENTS 1,123,249 2/ 1962 Germany.

WAYNE A. MORSE, 111., Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 53-35, 391 

